Healthcare suffering under McNeil government

February 20, 2015

NDP Leader Maureen MacDonald says today’s decision by James Dorsey highlights the fact that Stephen McNeil has neglected front-line health care for almost a year and a half.

“Intensive care beds are closing at the province’s only tertiary hospital because Stephen McNeil was too distracted by the fight he picked with healthcare workers,” says MacDonald. “I hope after today’s ruling the Premier stops creating new problems and starts focusing on improving front-line care.”

MacDonald said, “When a Premier allows critical health care to suffer then he isn’t doing the job he was elected to do. Just look at what has happened under the McNeil government: the home care waitlist has increased by 80 per cent, the wait list for long term care has reached an all-time high, the wait list for hip and knee replacement surgeries continues to grow, ERs are closed across rural Nova Scotia, not a single new Collaborative Emergency Centre has opened, we have a nursing shortage and intensive care units are short staffed. This has to end.”

MacDonald hopes the government will now step away from this process and allow the health care units to work out a fair solution that will reduce the number of bargaining units.